


Elder Tale

by MoonBaes_Kid



Category: The Boyz (Korea Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Log Horizon - Freeform, M/M, MMORPGs
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-05-29
Updated: 2019-06-18
Packaged: 2020-03-26 14:12:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,516
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19007422
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MoonBaes_Kid/pseuds/MoonBaes_Kid
Summary: On the 12th expansion of the famous game “Elder Tale”, Pioneers of Novasphere, almost a hundred thousand players got dragged into the game and woke up on the Arirang server, Korea. Kevin, a low level player who just happened to log in on the time the apocalypse happened, finds himself trapped in the main city with his teammates. Is there a way out or are they bound to live there forever?





	1. Winter

Kevin was really anxious by the time the clock hit 11pm. He had everything prepared for the new expansion.

Snacks? Check. Soda? Check. Pester Hyunjae so that he would play with him? Check!

You see, Kevin and Hyunjae were best friends and since the youngster found out that his long life crush Jacob played this game he couldn’t just stay behind. So he convinced his buddy to play with him. It wasn’t so bad since it was free.

Elder Tale had thirteen servers all around the globe, a really popular game, and the Korean was the only one free-to-play. How about that? There were hundreds of thousands of players in Arirang, the Korean server. And since Kevin discovered that his college crush used to play, he gladly became one of those hundreds of thousands and of course, with Hyunjae by his side. Always.

“So, are you ready?” Kevin said to the other who was in direct call with him.

“I guess. I heard this expansion will affect only the high level players. Like new items, raids and stuff.” Hyunjae complained. Good thing it was Saturday and tomorrow they wouldn’t have to go to college.

“Well, our goal is to get stronger, right? We’ll eventually get there.” And all he could hear was Hyunjae’s tongue clicking and a gulping sound. Kevin bet that his friend was drinking a ton of energetic right now.

“It’s finally midnight. Are you ready?”The older asked Kevin with a drowsy voice.

“You betcha!”

He could not be more wrong.

☆° . •. ○ ~☆° . •. ○ ~☆° . •. ○ ~

 

It was definitely cold. And for some reason… dark.

Kevin blinked a couple of times to get used to the white place he’s in. “What the hell?” He thought. Was he a little bit smaller? Was it snowing? He looked down to see he was wearing clothes that definitely weren’t his. A long light blue kimono was covering his whole body; he could spot some pretty golden stars on it.

He had the faint feeling he had seen this clothing before. He tried to move and felt something on his hand. He checked in and saw a long staff ornamented with lots of bells hanging from his hand.

“Kevin? Is that you?” Someone called him from behind. And as he turned, he gasped a bit and a window popped up.

 

“Hyunjae

Race / Elf

Class

Sorcerer – Lv. 29”

 

That’s it. That was definitely Hyunjae. For some reason his tall friend was wearing a light yellow robe with a thick book on his hand. “You have pointy ears” It was the first thing Kevin noticed to be honest.

“And you have fox ears, like, on top of your head. AND A TAIL!” Hyunjae screamed when getting closer to the latter. “Wait, hold on. Are we on Elder Tale?”

“What?! No! I mean, how?” Kevin was at a loss of words. “We _are_ dressed as our characters but–“ Kevin was interrupted by a loud growling, and as soon as he turned to see where it was coming from, Hyunjae gasped beside him.

“Is that a monster?” The latter’s voice was trembling a little.

Kevin could only spot a silhouette far from them, in the middle of the snow.

“Shit,” He turned to Hyunjae and finally realized where they were. “We were in the middle of a quest when we logged out yesterday. We’re on Yim Snow field”

“So we are really inside the game?!” Hyunjae had his eyes fixed on the figure that was moving slowly towards them. “Quick, Kevin. Pinch me, this must be a dream.”

The latter turned to his friend and it all happened really fast. Something jumped towards Hyunjae, taking him down. They rolled on the snow and fell just a couple of feet from Kevin.

“White-Blue Snow Wolf – Lv. 31 – Normal Rank”, said the monster`s window. It was trying to bite Hyunjae who was somehow escaping putting his grimoire in front of his face.

“Kevin! Do something!” He pleaded.

“Like what?”

“I don’t fucking know! Just get this thing off of me!”

Kevin ran and hit the canine with his staff. The thing barely moved. Instead, it turned to him and growled showing his white teeth and piercing him with black eyes. A new screen appeared before Kevin’s eyes. Lots of them, actually.

One of them caught his attention.

“Skills”

At that moment the boy just followed his instincts. He took a deep breath and raised his staff.

“Summon Companion: Wolfie!” He shouted and a green circle appeared before him, releasing a much smaller and cuter version of the wolf attacking Hyunjae. However, it jumped head first on the monster, throwing him far and giving Hyunjae the chance to get up. The summon disappeared after that.

“How did you do that?” Hyunjae asked out of breathe.

“It’s a game, right? If we have our equipment, I figured we’d still have our powers.” Kevin answered a little bit apprehensive.

The grey wolf got back on its feet and started running towards them. Kevin could see its life bar. 70% or so.

“Okay. Then it’s my turn.” Hyunjae grunted and mumbled a few words “Come on, you can do this. You are amazing.” The sorcerer opened his grimoire, managing to put it on one hand. “Orb of Lava!” He shouted.

His book glowed mysteriously and an orange-ish ball of fire was shot from his hand and hit the wolf right on its face and disintegrated it. Hyunjae celebrated, jumping up and down. “I did it! I did it! We defeated it! Am I great or what?” 

“Hmm, Hyunjae…?” Kevin gulped audibly.

“What?” Hyunjae turned to him. The silhouette that was coming towards them was close enough so they could see it clearly. “Fuck.” Hyunjae exasperated.

“Yeti Chief – Lv. 35 – Party rank”. The beast was almost three times taller than them and had white fur covering all of his body. It also had an ice mace oh his right hand.

“His life bar is different.” Hyunjae said sheepishly, thinking that maybe if they didn’t move too much it would ignore them.

“He’s a Boss. And a big one…” Kevin said, looking around for a way out.

He did knew this place in the game, but right now he couldn’t access his map and he was afraid to wander off and get lost with Hyunjae.

“Buddy?” He called the latter. “There’s no way out. We’ll have to defeat it.”

“What?! You crazy?” Hyunjae turned to him and the Yeti Chief began to run at full speed now.

“Stay close to me, my magic range is short!” Kevin shouted while casting barriers around Hyunjae.

“I’m not a tanker! I’m not gonna stand his attacks for too long!” He replied.

In a perfect timing, a window appeared before both of them.

“Sunwoo invites you to join his party!”

               Yes             No                  

Hyunjae looked to the monster that was now too close and looked back to Kevin with an apprehensive face. The latter just nodded and they both accepted the request.

As soon as they hit yes, a mysterious guy jumped in front of the monster. He was wearing a traditional Korean red armor with a long-bladed ring-pommel sword on his hands. He had ears and a tail just like Kevin’s, but the latter knew they weren’t the same.

“Sunwoo

Race / Wolf Fang

Class

Hwarang – Lv. 31”

 

For some reason, as soon as he appeared, the monster turned to him. He was now parrying his attacks with his blade and Kevin thought he was too agile and strong so they might have a chance to actually win this thing.

“Medium guy! A little help here!” He yelled.

That was Kevin’s cue. He used his healing abilities – although very weak – on him and he could see Hyunjae was aiming his own skills to the monster.

“Hwall, now! His flank is open!” The tanker yelled again and a cat-like creature surged with a long bow and aimed to the beast’s side.

“Assassinate” He said slowly and a red Hangeul with the word Death appeared in front of the monster and his life bar got really damaged after that. The beast roared in pain and turned back to attack the cat that stood still in his place, smirking.

“No you won’t.” Sunwoo said pressing the base of his sword against the palm of his hand. “Hwarang Challenge”. A blue tailwind hit the monster and made him look confused for a while than it turned back to hit the tanker kid to which Kevin kept casting barriers at over the time. “Sorcerer, you can finish him.” Sunwoo said confidently.

“Inferno Strike!” Hyunjae casted a fire attack against the beast. It crumbled and exploded in small bubbles, leaving a great amount of items and coins on the snow where it was.

A rainbow vortex surrounded Hyunjae and Kevin.

“Congratulations. You leveled up!” They could see on a pop-up window in front of them.

 “Kevin                                          “Hyunjae

  Race / Fox Tail                             Race / Elf

  Class                                            Class

  Medium – Lv. 30”                          Sorcerer – Lv. 30”

 

Kevin was still immobilized is his place. “What just happened?” He thought. Hyunjae fell on his knees beside him, sighing really loud. Meanwhile the two strangers were going through the reminiscing items of the area boss.

“Hey, Medium guy. This is an armguard for supports. You should have it. It’ll increase your healing and barrier strength.” The Hwarang approached them with the other dude behind him. “Here’s your share of gold as well. Divided by four.”

Kevin bowed down and grabbed the item and gold in front of him.  “Hm… I’m Kevin, and this is Hyunjae.” He pointed to his friend who was getting up by now.

“Thanks for helping us.” Hyunjae said offering his hand to shake. Sunwoo looked to it, considering it for a moment and then accepting the gesture.

“It was nothing. Me and Hwall here probably wouldn’t have defeated a thing that strong alone anyways. So we should be thanking you guys as well.” He said with a tender smile on his face.

The cat-like creature behind him nodded and put his bow on his shoulder. He had white and black fur with heterochromic eyes. He was as tall as Hyunjae.

“You’re not much of a talker, are you?” Hyunjae joked to it. To which he just pierced the latter’s body with a cold look.

“Hwall

Race / Werecat

Class

Assassin – Lv. 32”

“Don’t be like this, man.” Sunwoo reprehended his friend. “I’m sorry. He’s really… moody?”

“It’s understandable…” Kevin sighed. “Hm… Do you guys have any idea of what happened?”

“We were playing Elder Tale and the new expansion came up… Next thing we knew, we were here.” Sunwoo told them while trying to remember things clearly. “Actually we were a bit uphill. But them we heard you guys fighting and we came down to help.”

“Same to us.” Hyunjae said clicking his tongue. “This is really messed up.”

The Hwall dude walked over to Sunwoo and whispered something is his wolf ear, making him become startled for a split second. “What? What happened?” Kevin asked, worried.

“Hwall asked me if this is like that novels we used to read.” Sunwoo began. “Like… If we die here. Do we die in the real world?”

The four men stood in silence for a few moments. Kevin still couldn’t quite wrap his mind around it. He just knew he didn’t want to die there, not like that.

“We need to get out of here. At least go to somewhere safe” He looked around but all he saw was snow everywhere. Then something hit him. “We can use the spell Call Of Home, right? Then we can go to the nearest city around here.” They all nodded slightly. That was a spell that all races and classes had in order to go to a city no matter where they were. Kevin turned to the two new guys in front of him. “Are you guys coming with us? We did a pretty good job right now.”

Hwall whispered something again and Sunwoo smiled and nodded.  “Sure. We’ll stick around for the time being.”

“Okay. So let’s go.” Hyunjae said, energetic as ever. “I’ll meet you guys wherever we end up.”

They then counted up to three and pressed the spell “Call Of Home” at the same time. A white light surrounded each one of them individually and after five seconds, it all became dark. And for a little while Kevin felt less cold.


	2. Rescue

The light was a little harsh as Kevin spawned from the spell. The first thing he was able to see was the huge walls of Seoul, the main city of the Arirang server. It was still snowing but just a little bit compared to the last place they were. The first person he saw was Hyunjae standing tall and waving energetically at him. Then the new duo blinked between them at the same time.

            “Hey. How you guys doing?” Sunwoo said putting his sword on its case by his hip. “Long time no see” He joked.

            “I’m fine. It’ll take me a while to get used to this kind of transportation… But I’m glad this actually worked out.” Kevin approached his newly made friends in front of the entrance to the city.

            “Well, shall we?” Hyunjae said while looking at the well-lit path before him, the sun was already setting in the horizon. The four men walked side by side and what they found was actually surprising.

Lots of players crowded the streets of Seoul looking desolated. Some were crying and/or screaming. They all didn’t seem to know what happened either. The white snow covering all the buildings left everything looking so sad and hopeless.

“Aw man, this is bad.” Hyunjae grumbled while looking to the people at the street. “I was still hoping this might be a dream, y’know”  

Sunwoo laughed without much intent and clicked his tongue. “I don’t think it is.” He said and they all stopped in the middle of an intersection.

“This is so weird. I mean, we’ve been here so many times before when this was a game. It actually feels like home, but now with more realistic graphics.” Kevin said to them while looking to this solid building in front of him. He knew that place really well. The Cathedral was where all the players were reborn whenever they died in the game. Seeing it now was really scary. The tall wooden doors were closed and the mosaics on the window`s glasses looked so terrifying right now.

Just in that moment, someone opened the doors and got out of the building. All the players that were in the area swarmed the girl who was still looking lost. “Did you die?” Someone asked her. “Yeah… I mean, I was caught up by a field boss and I thought I was doomed for sure. My HP just disappeared and I woke up inside there.” She pointed the building behind her. “So death isn’t quite the end in this world, huh?” Another girl complained in the middle of the crowd. People started to divide themselves and to walk away. It meant that almost everything was still the same, right?

A flashing icon appeared before Kevin, interrupting his thoughts. The guy flinched and everybody turned to face him. “What is it?” Hyunjae asked. There was a ringtone playing on Kevin’s ears, only he was hearing it. “I think… someone is calling me?” He said while checking the panel in front of him. “We can still use our telepathic messages? Cool!” Hyunjae said excited. These kinds of messages were private and send from one player to another. It seems that now they _really_ are telepathic.

“Joo Haknyeon is calling you!” Kevin frowned and tried to remember where he had heard that name before. He then remembered it. He touched the “accept” button in a rush; it meant that he was trapped there with them. The first thing he heard was a muffled voice, almost as if the guy had been crying. “Kevin-hyung? Is this you?” He asked in a tiny whisper.

“Haknyeon? It’s me. What happened?” He looked at Hyunjae who raised his brows when he heard the name of their former friend. The easygoing guy who used to level up with them when they had just started playing, but someday he just vanished and they never saw him online anymore. “Hyung… Hm…” He sounded like he was thinking. “I need your help.”

Kevin walked away from the others and gestured that he’d be back soon. Hyunjae was observing his friend talk while pressing one of his ears as though he wanted to hear the other clearly. That gave Hyunjae an idea. He tried to open his friend list and after focusing a little bit, he got the hang of it. Swiping through the panel, he saw what he was looking for.

“Jacob Lv. 90 – Online – Unknown Location ”

_So he is trapped here after all_ , he thought.

After a couple of minutes, Kevin came back and Hyunjae closed the window. He waited for Sunwoo and Hwall to come closer and then started explaining the situation.

“I need to help Hak.” He said sighing.

“Who this?” Sunwoo said, leaning against a wall. Hwall had his attention on Kevin as well.

“He’s a friend of ours. We used to play together in the beginning.” Hyunjae was the one who answered. “So what happened?” He turned to his friend.

“He’s trapped in Sokcho. Apparently things are worse there.” He stated. “There’s this guild that is taking control over the city. They are stealing items and money from adventurers, PKing. Hak said that they’re even bullying the People of the land.” Kevin sounded worried. 

“Wait.” Hyunjae interrupted his friend. “What’s PK?”

“Player Killing. You can get the gist of it.” Sunwoo said and his tail was wagging in anger. “We can’t really die here, but that is just nasty.” Then he realized something. “Wait, we can’t fight inside the city. How are they killing other players?”

“They are killing everyone who tries to get out of town.” Kevin answered clearly angry.

“Oh my god. We’re here just for a couple of hours and things are already this bad over there?” Hyunjae said shocked and everyone looked down thinking about that. “Okay… And the People of the Land. They are still around, huh?” Sunwoo broke the silence.

The People of the land were NPCs on Elder Tale; they were responsible for giving the players quests, items and used to flourish the history behind the game. All they could do was say pre-made sentences and actions.

“Hak said so, but I haven’t seen them around.” Kevin said. In the main city there were a lot of them running some stalls and selling items. It was already pretty late and all of them were closed by now. “That’s strange… Do they, like, sleep?” The Medium asked to himself.

“Well, I don’t know about them, but I think we should. We can start planning the rescue tomorrow morning.” Sunwoo said while stretching his back.

“You’re coming with us?” Hyunjae asked surprised. “Neat.”

“I mean, we don’t want to bother.” Kevin said sheepishly.

“Hey, we’re friends.” The Hwarang gave him two thumbs up and put Kevin at ease. “Besides, we’re always looking for some new adventure, right buddy?” He turned to Hwall, who just smiled, making his cat whiskers shake a little. He kinda gave Kevin the creeps.

“Hey, by the way. If the city is overrun by these bullies how come Hak could call you?” The tall Sorcerer raised his eyebrow.

“He said a couple of strong players saved him and they are hiding in a private building.” He sounded really down.

“I give you my word that we’ll save him, right?” Sunwoo pat him in the back. “We just need to rest a little and grab some supplies for the trip. It’s not like Sokcho is around the corner, you know?”

Kevin nodded and they started walking. Where to exactly?

“When this was a game, there was this kind of inn that we used to rest and fill up our MP and HP.” Hyunjae pointed out. “It was right there.”

A wooden building with a cozy feeling and bright inviting lights was standing there. The four of them headed towards it and opened the front door. The place was a lot more spacious than it seemed from outside. This old couple was standing behind a counter in the back of the room.

“Hello nice adventurers. Looking for a room to rest your tired heads?” The man said with a caring and nurturing smile adorning his face. Kevin did remember this conversation; this NPC was the same when this was a game.

“Actually we are looking for two, sir.” Hyunjae said giving back a smile. “Are there any available?”

“Oh, sure. My young man.” The NPC said and asked to his wife to show them their rooms.

They were sleeping next to each other; Hyunjae and Kevin in one room, Hwall and Sunwoo in the other. Even though he was tired as hell, as Kevin closed his eyes he wasn’t able to drift off. He kept thinking of how messed up this all was. What about his family? Friends and teachers? Were they all gone just like that? Apparently yes and there was nothing he could do about it, so he just cried himself to sleep.

 

☆° . •. ○ ~☆° . •. ○ ~☆° . •. ○ ~

 

 

One thing was for sure: Sleeping still worked in this world.

Kevin woke up feeling a lot better. He felt like he could do a triathlon and he would still have energy to fight everyone and everything. Except he was hungry, so the first thing he did when he got up was search for the place that was exhaling this smell that made his stomach growl.

It was almost like he could taste the breakfast just by smelling it. He got down and it seemed like he was the last. All the members of his party were already fully dressed and eating their hearts out.

“Hey Kev! Sit, sit.” Hyunjae waved to the empty chair next to him. “Ahjumma made all this for us. It was just a couple of gold coins” He said excited.

The golden coins were the currency in the game and apparently in this world as well. The easiest way to win it is to kill monsters or doing missions. Since they were both kind of new in the game, Kevin and Hyunjae didn’t have that much money. At least paying for food and shelter was cheap.

“Thank you ahjumma.” He bowed down and sat next to his hyper friend. Everything looked so good and Kevin ate it with a smile on his face. Hyunjae started laughing and slamming the table. “Dude, you’re _that_ happy? Your tail is wagging so much!” Everyone laughed at him and he sighed deeply. “Isn’t it too early for you to bother me?” He glared at Hyunjae who just clicked his tongue. They talked for a couple of minutes until they all finished eating. Kevin was impressed by the couple; all the stories they were telling about how they met and started dating. The day they married and how their kids all moved to nearby cities. That was not in the original game.  

“Thanks for the breakfast, ahjumma and ahjussi” They were all preparing to go out after thanking the owners of the inn for the delicious breakfast when a glass shattering sound was heard.

“Are you okay, honey?” The older woman asked to her husband who was taking the dishes to the kitchen. “Yes, sweetie. It’s just one of this of plates. It broke and hurt me a little.”

The five of them went back inside the kitchen. “A scratch?! That’s too much blood, ahjussi!” Hyunjae said checking the wound. It didn’t seem too serious, just really bloody. “Oh! Kevin, heal it.” He said and all of them stared at him. “Uh… Sure!” But before he could get a hold of his staff the nice old lady laughed. “Thank you, sweetie. But Adventurer’s magic does not work on us. Not the healing type actually.” She said and grabbed a first-aid kit on the bathroom and Kevin helped cleaning his wound.

After that they left promising to come back soon and heading towards the main part of the city. “We need mount for the four of us, we’ll never get to Sokcho on foot… and potions. Do potions still work?” Sunwoo said turning to them with an eyebrow raised. “Anyways. We don’t have enough money to afford all this.” They all checked their inventory and they were still short a few gold coins. While sitting thinking how they could gather more money, Hyunjae got up abruptly. “I have an idea!” He them called someone via telepathy, sounding really enthusiastic.

While he was talking, Kevin remembered something. “We don’t need to go to Sokcho on foot. We can use the portals to teleport.” He said to Sunwoo and Hwall. “Yeah. I thought that as well. But for some reason the teleporters all around are not working. They’re just busted or something.” Sunwoo replied tired. “Hwall went for a stroll in the morning and gathered some info around the city.” He didn’t talk much but he sure was useful, Kevin thought. After hearing the explanation the Medium just nodded and waited for Hyunjae to finish his call.

“Okay. Am I great or what?” He boasted himself. “I’ll get us what we need. Come on. We just need to go to the Guild Hall.” And just like that they all followed Hyunjae, assuming he knew where he was going.

Guilds are a formal group of players with an organized structure and a leader. Different from the temporary group that the four guys were on, a guild was a lasting team with lots of members. The Guild Hall was the home of several of these guilds in which they all had a base with rooms to receive their players.

That’s where they were: In front of Monsta X’s guild room. Hyunjae stopped and the others piled up behind him. “Why don’t we just go inside?” Kevin asked, anxious. “We’re not from the guild, so we don’t have permission to enter.” The guy answered and the door opened revealing a huge man in light clothing and blue gauntlets on both hands.

“Jaehyunnie! It’s been a while!” Despite being a beefy dude, the man just reached out to hug the Sorcerer in front of him. “Shownu, you’re smashing me.” Hyunjae’s muffled voice was heard and the guy released him. “And don’t call me by my real name.” He reprehended the other and now Kevin could see him clearly.

“Shownu

Race / Human

Class

Monk – Lv. 90

Guild Master – Monsta X”

“Hey, you guys must be friends with Jaehyun, right?” Just then he noted all of them. “Come on in, come on in!” They followed him inside the guild room and to a big reunion lounge. “So, what brings you guys here?”

“Hyung, as I said, we need your help.” Hyunjae started. “Our friend is trapped in Sokcho and the only way to get there is by crossing towards northeast by foot.”  Shownu whistled and scratched his head. “That’s pretty far, you know. If this was still a game, it would take at least seven hours without fighting monsters on the way, but now it’s really hard to say.”

Elder Tale used a program called Half Gaia Project in which the servers were a replica of the country or continent they represented. Besides that, all distances were cut in half. In the real world Seoul and Sokcho were 158km apart from each other, which makes 78km on Elder Tale. Of course there were monsters and bosses worst than the ones they fought before, that’s why they needed equipment.

“We know. We need food for our mounts and consumables for the trip.” Hyunjae said while looking to the Monk in front of him. Shownu was considering everything. “C’mon hyung, Monsta X is one of the greatest supplier guilds. I know you could spare this to us, it’s really important.” He pleaded. The man sighed and got up. “Okay, just because I owed you one. We are even, okay?” He opened the door and called for someone. A tall man with a perfect face took the other three guys to a deposit inside the guild premises, Hyunjae started following them when Shownu called him.

 “Hyungwon will give you all you need. And please, please, be careful. We don’t know what’s out there and if everything is just how they used to be. I wish I could go with you but I can’t. The big guilds are being called to have a meeting this afternoon to discuss what we’ll do with all this.” He gesticulated around. Now that he was standing close to his friend, he could see how tired the guy looked. “You should be taking care of yourself as well, okay? We’ll be fine and I’ll update you on everything.” He patted Shownu’s back and smiled confidently.

 

☆° . •. ○ ~☆° . •. ○ ~☆° . •. ○ ~

 

After a while searching through some stuff on the guild warehouse, they four guys were prepared to go. At least equipment-wise. They all thanked Shownu and the other members that helped them and went towards the city gate. “How do you even know Monsta X’s guild master? They are, like, the number one supply guild on the whole server.” Sunwoo asked to Hyunjae who was getting his new coat on. “He’s my neighbor. Was, actually. He used to babysit me when I was a kid. I had this huge crush on him in that time.” He said nonchalantly while they stopped in the limits of the city to make the final adjustments. The Hwarang just laughed and Kevin followed him. He saw Hwall checking his bow and he swear he saw his cat eyes roll over.

“So… Are you guys ready?” Kevin watched the sun slightly setting over the horizon. They all answered positively and Kevin called Haknyeon one last time before leaving just to check on him. Apparently things were still stable with him, as for Sokcho…

“Don’t worry, Hak. We’ll be there as soon as possible.” Kevin guaranteed and hung up.

As the moon rose in the dark sky, the four guys headed northeast to rescue their friend and perhaps be the firsts to experience the tough reality that this world has to offer them.  

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm still trying to set some elements of the universe so you guys can understand everthing. Hope that's not too boring. Thank you for reading!


	3. Hope

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dungeon(Def.): A Dungeon is any type of adventuring location in all MMO games, which is designed like a labyrinth or maze-like structure that has numerous paths, monsters, and rooms (for closed dungeons). There are plenty of dungeons in Elder Tale.

            It has been two days since the four men left Seoul in order to save their friend Haknyeon. By that time Kevin had to revive them countless times. They had astounding synergy fighting together but somehow that wasn’t enough. Fighting when this was a game was easy. One button pressed and done. Now they have to fight with their own bodies and even though they didn’t hurt very much on these battles, they were really tired. 

Right now they were sitting in the middle of a glade in Gonchung Forest, just a little bit past Seoul. Sunwoo was cooking some meat Hwall had hunted.

“You see, I just knew this Cook subclass would be really useful.” The Hwarang said while making meat skewers and putting them on the fire. Hyunjae sat behind him while cleaning some of the dust from his face with a wet cloth. “I made the fire, so you’re welcome.” He said jokingly.

“You used your powers. It’s not like you actually lit these with your bare hands.” Kevin threw a handful of leaves on the other. “Hey, watch the hair, geez. Where’s Hwall?” He asked standing up and looking around.

“He said he was going to search for some fish. You know, cat stuff.” Sunwoo answered without taking his eyes off of the skewers. “Go grab him, please. We need to discuss some things.”

And so did Hyunjae. There was a creek just near where they were setting camp. The tall sorcerer left his white coat with Kevin and followed the sound of the running water. It didn’t take much for him to find the Assassin sitting on a rock on the riverside with an improvised fishing rod.

“What are you doing?” He asked and Hwall just glanced at him, without answering. So Hyunjae did what any other person would do. “Hey, dude. What are you doing? What are you doing? What are you doing?” To which Hwall just frowned.

“Fishing.”

“Any luck so far?” Hwall pointed to a big leaf besides him, where there were a couple of fishes laying there. “Oh, I see. Sunwoo is calling us. There’s going to be a meeting to rearrange our strategies.”

The two guys just took the fishes and marched towards their camp. In the middle of the way they could already smell the delicious aroma of meat being cooked.

“Oh, Sunwoo-ssi you cook really well. It smells delicious” The Sorcerer was almost drooling on his own chin. “Thanks, man. I hope it is as tasteful as it smells good.” They all sat in front of the fire and started eating to their hearts content, except for Hwall who was grilling the fish he has caught.

“So, we kinda need to talk about our strategy. The one we’re using is not working very well. I can’t just revive you guys in the middle of the battlefield. It’s just not safe.”Kevin said looking really bummed out. “My healings are not to strong and I feel like I’m too weak to protect you guys when it comes to bigger bosses and stuff.”

“Hm… Which build are you going for?” Sunwoo asked and Kevin looked lost for a moment.

 “Build? I have no idea.”

“Is this, like, your first RPG?” Sunwoo raised an eyebrow and laughed when Kevin nodded. “It’s okay really. But every class has at least two types of build. Builds are the way you construct your character. You can’t be well-rounded in all aspects. I mean, you can, but it won’t be as good as if you’re focusing on something.”

“Oh…” Kevin was really just a newbie. “So what are your builds?” He asked looked to both Sunwoo and Hwall.

“He uses the Sniper Build for Assassins.” The Hwarang pointed to Hwall with his chin. “I’m using the Vengeance Build since it works really well with his.”

“And how’s that?” Hyunjae, who were quietly listening while eating the leftovers, finally said something.

“Assassins are experts in bursting damage. But since Hwall loves to fight with the bow, he kinda loses some of this damage because he can use fewer abilities. To compensate that, he makes poison to embed his arrows. His subclass is alquimist.” Sunwoo explained and Hwall sat there eating and didn’t say a word. “But since he can call a lot of attention of monsters, or as we say in games, aggro, he needs someone who can lure them. And that’s where I enter. My class is specialist in taunting enemies so that I can receive the damage instead of my teammates.”

“I see…” Kevin listened to it really carefully and wrote down in a notepad how their skills worked. “You wouldn’t happen to now a good build for a Medium, right?”

“I do.” Hwall said. Every time he spoke, Kevin would flinch. He’s so quiet that he sometimes forgets he’s there.

“Out of the three Healer classes, the Medium is the weakest one when it comes to immediate healing. They work with damage-prevention. But you should know that by now.” Said Sunwoo while retrieving the cooking utensils and using a water bucket by the tent to clean them.

“Mediums have three main builds. Basically front, middle and back lines. You have to ask yourself where do you wanna be.” The cat person asked. “In the front line, you’ll have to use your barriers on yourself and focus on hitting and running. This build is more for solo players. On the backline you can focus on monitoring our conditions and focusing on healing us and blocking monsters attacks. And the final build is the Bow Shinto Priest. As the name suggests, you’ll need a MP absorbing bow to be in the middle line to both heal and attack. Sunwoo is on the frontline, I’m in the middle and Hyunjae is on the back.”

“Hm… If I stay in the front line I can’t exactly help you guys…” Kevin said while thinking of his skills. “I think that the backline is the best option for us.”

“Okay. Then that’s it. I have a necklace that will drop your MP consumption a lot. You can have it.” Hwall offered, taking it out of his bag.

“Thanks, man.”

“It’s really nice that we still have our magic bags. I mean, imagine having to carry all our items on normal bags. With them I hardly feel any weight” Hyunjae said looking to Hwall’s.

“Yeah. All of our items seem to be where we left them. So that’s okay I guess.” Kevin said while putting the necklace with a blue pendant around his neck. “And our bodies know how to do this kind of stuff. I’ve never rode a horse before and I was doing just fine on the way over.”

“Me neither. This is actually kinda cool.” Sunwoo answered smiling over the tent. “So guys. As you know, we are having a little bit of a problem with this mission. We need to come up with a plan because when can’t just keep dying and expecting Kevin to revive us.” The red haired Hwarang put away his apron and sat next to the others.

“We need to have a solid defense in order to get to Sokcho in one piece. If one of us dies and I can’t revive you, we’ll be reborn back in Seoul and that’s it for Haknyeon.” Kevin continued the explanation. “I need to know everything about your abilities and your preferences so I can come up with a way of helping you in the field.”

“How will you do that?” Hwall asked.

“I had a friend once” He started and Hyunjae gave him a judgy look. He knew who that friend was. “He was really good at this game. He taught me a few things and one of them was that in every party there has to be a Field monitor. Their function is to watch over the HP and MP so that we can know when and how to attack properly.”

“And you waited until now to say this?” Sunwoo used a fake annoyance tone with the Medium.

“I know, I’m sorry. It’s because I used to play only with Hyunjae and it was okay for us not to have this kind of strategy. But now that we have a proper party, we have to do this.”

“Okay. I forgive you.” The Hwarang said solemnly.

They all took turns as the night grew deep talking about their preferences and how their abilities worked. Hyunjae had the biggest skill pool among them, but also the lower defense. Hwall had the biggest attack range and damage. Sunwoo was in charge of not letting anything come near the other guys and Kevin was supposed to keep him alive.

After this long talk, the boys went inside their tents to get a good night of sleep. Tomorrow would be the day they get to Sokcho. Before actually sleeping, Kevin called Haknyeon to update him on their status. He seemed to be safe and sound, but there were rumors that the entire guild was looking for him. It turns out that the guild master was really upset with the fact that someone was not under his command.

Kevin said goodnight to his friend and hung up. But before he closed his eyes he couldn’t help but wonder. Was Jacob still playing? Was he here? Kevin hoped he was.

 

☆° . •. ○ ~☆° . •. ○ ~☆° . •. ○ ~

It was still a little dark when the party started moving the last couple of miles. Hyunjae was yawning loudly on top of his horse. Sunwoo and Hwall seemed really tired as well. According to Kevin’s calculation, they’d arrive on Sokcho later in the morning. The woods were really calm and the sunrays were piercing through the tall trees and caressing the Medium’s face.

“Oh… Yeah. This is troublesome.” Sunwoo said on his left.

A huge cave was in front of them and they all stopped by its entrance. As soon as Kevin looked at it a window popped up.

 

“Baem Cave – Dungeon

  Event – None

  Recommended Level – 40”

 

“Fuck. I forgot there was a dungeon here…” Kevin complained.

“We can turn around.” Hyunjae suggested.

“No, we will lose another day and we’re already behind schedule.”

“You are not thinking of crossing it, right?” The Sorcerer asked and Kevin just smiled at him.

“C’mon it’ll be fun!”

“I’m with Kevin.” Sunwoo said, smiling too.

“Hm.” The cat person nodded.

“You guys! This is a couple of levels stronger than us. If we die, we’ll go back.” He reminded them.

“We just need to follow our strategy and we’ll be okay.” Sunwoo got down his horse and released it. All of them followed his steps.

“I’ll make sure to keep you guys alive. Just follow my calls, okay?” Kevin assured them.

And after reviewing their tactics, the party entered on the Snake’s Nest.

 

☆° . •. ○ ~☆° . •. ○ ~☆° . •. ○ ~

 

“Sunwoo! You got two Jade Snakes on your left!” Kevin screamed.

“Gotcha! Vacuum Slash!” A silver attack was projected off of his sword and hit the two snakes that turned to him while he ran towards them.

“Protective Barrier” Kevin said and a red barrier was put in front of the Hwarang. “Hyunjae, help Sunwoo! Hwall, retreat. Your skills are on cool down.”

The Assassin had just finished two enemies alone. He returned back to Kevin’s side.

“Healing Prayer” Kevin healed Hwall. “It will take a while for the healing to work. After that you can return to the battle.”

“Copy” He answered.

The other two guys just finished killing the other foes. They quickly regrouped so that they could look around to check if more of them were coming.

No sign of it.

“Good” Kevin sighed. “Drink up your potions, we still have some ground to cover”

The guys sat down and made a quick bonfire to help recovering their stats. Hwall whispered something to Sunwoo and they both smiled. Hyunjae was gulping a MP potion down. Kevin felt exhausted all of a sudden. All he wanted was some fucking Korean beef.

 

☆° . •. ○ ~☆° . •. ○ ~☆° . •. ○ ~

 

A couple of battles after, they found themselves in front of a big door at the end of the path.

“The dungeon boss must be here.” Sunwoo said looking at the tall structure in front of him. “It’s now or never.”

“Well, I choose never. Bye.” Hyunjae turned around and Hwall grabbed him by his collar before he went too far.

“We’ll be fine. I saw some guys fighting this boss when this was a game. It’s not that hard.” Kevin just wanted to seem like he was okay. In fact, he was terrified.

“Let’s go.”

 

☆° . •. ○ ~☆° . •. ○ ~☆° . •. ○ ~

 

“Hwall needs healing!” Sunwoo shouted for the fifth time since the battle started.

Kevin was trying to maintain things under control, but the boss was too strong.

“Medusa – Lv. 40 – Dungeon Boss”

Hyunjae was turned into stone and Hwall’s skills were in cooldown. Then it hit Kevin: If he doesn’t do anything, they are going to die and Haknyeon will be trapped in Sokcho. They were fighting for a while now and they were so tired. But they didn’t come this far to fail. Kevin would do anything to help his friends.

“Sunwoo, lure it to the other side!” And the guy just nodded and ran to the other side of the cave. He was outside Kevin’s range but he should be okay by now.

“Notice of Exorcism!” He casted the spell on Hyunjae who quickly came back to normal. “I need you biggest spell. Now.”

“This bitch has really pissed me off.” Hyunjae growled and raised his staff.

 “Sunwoo, get out of the way” Kevin warned and the Hwarang rolled over in the moment Hyunjae screamed.

“Blizzard!”

Medusa became stunned for a brief moment and them Kevin turned to Hwall who was already moving by its flank. He jumped on a rock and aimed his bow over its head.

“Assassinate” As Hwall fell graciously on the floor, Medusa’s body exploded and a strong light shone, blinding them.

When Kevin opened his eyes, he could see the other guys opening the door that the boss was hiding. The exit.

“Wow” Hyunjae opened it and they all saw the same thing as him.

There was this beautiful view of the end of the forest. Sokcho could be seen from where they were standing. The sky was blue for the first time since they arrived there.

“I just realized something.” Sunwoo said and everyone turned to him. “We were the first ones to beat this dungeon. I mean, after the Apocalypse.” The Hwarang smiled as bright as the sun.

“We are amazing. I never doubted we could make it.” Hyunjae hugged Sunwoo and Hwall while admiring the view.

“We sure are.” Kevin breathed deep and allowed himself to feel hope for the first time in a while.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I was late. Sorry;;;   
> Did you guys enjoy this chapter? Jacob has not appeared yet. I wonder where he is...


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